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evanmartyr
08-06-2013, 03:22 AM
I've been experimenting with off-the-beaten-path tempo decks in Modern, and while fiddling with a shitty LD pile, my friend reminded me that there's still a decent amount of bounce spells that can hit lands in Modern. While it's missing some of the more important things (like, say, a reliable way to take advantage of any tempo you're generating by setting your opponent back nearly a turn every turn) it is kind of fun to play. Needs a ton of tweaking, though.

4x Riftwing Cloudskate
4x Snapcaster Mage
3x Tamiyo, the Moon Sage
2x Karn Liberated

4x Eye of Nowhere
4x Boomerang
4x Wipe Away
4x Cryptic Command
1x Clutch of the Undercity
4x Deny Reality

4x Shadow of Doubt

The usual 22 lands.

Cards I'm considering/not sure about:

Delver of Secrets: is worse than useless. Your creatures are, for the most part, speedbumps that either keep you trucking along with the game plan of bouncing any and everything, or let you reuse old spells. It'll just soak up removal, but you'd rather have nearly anything in your opening hand rather than try to be offensive early.

Clutch of the Undercity: Is a win-con with Tamiyo ultimate-ed, which is pretty swell, but unlike Cryptic Command and Deny Reality, it doesn't progress you very far. Many games it'll either be a desperation-transmute for a Cryptic Command, or it'll be just another Boomerang...but one that costs a ton.

Shadow of Doubt: At worst it cycles for 2, which isn't terribly worse than the other options I was looking at (Serum Visions and Sleight of Hand are better at digging, but have no potential for blowout and are sorceries). At best it's a damn beating; a way to permanently set back a more aggressive deck or put control further on the back foot.

Lands: I'm not sure about the count. The deck has no real card draw (8 of its cards cycle, but that's it), but 22 has so far been floody rather than screwy, and that seems best with the number of 4+cc spells included.

Spellstutter Sprite: Seems great until I started playing it. Yes, you'll get to counter your fair share of spells with it, but for the most part I really, really don't care if they want to Path or Bolt my creatures, and in the case of Path I'd rather they actually resolve it than remove a blocker 90% of the time.

Cheap Countermagic (Spell Snare, Spell Pierce, etc): Just doesn't seem worth it most games. I'm not against siding them in, and Muddle the Mixture may be a good option there too (being able to Transmute it into a Snapcaster could prove pretty excellent). If taking the deck in a more reactive direction is needed, then I'll certainly look at these first.

Far//Away: Is a great way to get ahead/stay ahead against aggressive decks, since you'll be setting them back a bit more than you should and/or killing a creature for a reasonable cost, but I honestly haven't playtested the deck against much so I'm not sure what this thing has to really worry about.

Karn, Liberated: Haven't actually tried him out yet but the deck was screaming for a card that could carry it into the late game. Most of the time you're not terribly concerned with casting it super early, since it's likely that aggro decks will be stalled out and control will be racing to keep up with even the shitty clock that Cloudskates represent, so lacking the ramp that Tron has isn't a big deal. I feel like he might be pretty solid. At the very least, permanently removing two lands or two threats you're just tired of seeing isn't too bad.

Cyclonic Rift: Expensive to Overload, and can't hit lands, but shit is it one-sided. My concern is that most of the time it'll buy you a single turn, which isn't great for a card that doesn't dig.

Encroaching Wastes: Introduces the possibility of color screw, but the upside is that you can potentially turn a land drop into a better bounce spell mid- to late-game. Opponents shouldn't really be getting to the Tectonic Edge threshold, and Ghost Quarter doesn't affect your board position positively.

Jace Beleren: Cheap, you don't usually care if your opponent is drawing cards since most of your deck prevents them from playing them, and represents a recurring source of card draw as well as a possible alternate win condition. My concern is that he's terrible: no abilities that even remotely affect the board, and can't help you recover from a negative situation as well as literally any other card drawing spell that is remotely playable. May be win-more, may be an engine piece that ties the whole deck together. Haven't had a chance to test him.

Eye of Nowhere: It's just a crummy boomerang, and it makes sure you almost always keep them off their third land for a while. My concern is that most Modern decks tend to care more about their second land than their third, and that it's a sorcery which means you're making decisions about mana and card usage on your turn, so you're missing a lot of information.

Thoughts?

Davran
08-06-2013, 10:00 AM
Into the Roil is another option. Of course it doesn't hit a land, but replacing itself later in the game might make up for it.

You can also do some semi-janky things with Aether Tradewinds like return your Snapcaster and their shockland.

The real question is whether or not this type of deck is any better than Mistbind Clique/faeries.dec...while less cool from a style points perspective, playing Fae gets you access to a bunch of additional disruption like Spellstutter Sprite and Vendilion Clique which also doubles as some sort of clock.

evanmartyr
08-06-2013, 05:08 PM
Into the Roil is another option. Of course it doesn't hit a land, but replacing itself later in the game might make up for it.

Yeah, Into the Roil and Repeal are both attractive. Not being able to hit lands is a huge downer, though.


You can also do some semi-janky things with Aether Tradewinds like return your Snapcaster and their shockland.

Appealing, but I can't see it replacing any of the current bounce spells, with the exception of a couple copies of Wipe Away. Problem is that Aether Tradewinds is *awful* if you don't have a creature to return. Costs one more than Boomerang/Eye of Nowhere with no net gain in terms of land drops or anything.


The real question is whether or not this type of deck is any better than Mistbind Clique/faeries.dec...while less cool from a style points perspective, playing Fae gets you access to a bunch of additional disruption like Spellstutter Sprite and Vendilion Clique which also doubles as some sort of clock.

Yeah, Clique is tempting too. I initially shied away from it because it doesn't immediately affect the board. It'd certainly be a solid SB card against control or combo, though, if the deck stays roughly the same. Spellstutter I've found to be not phenomenal. There are a few 1cc spells you care about countering but generally you'd rather just delay until a Planeswalker lands or you start pulling ahead with mid to late-game bounce chains enabled by Snapcaster/Deny Reality/Cryptic Command. Moving away from the late-game plan towards a "true" tempo build would probably just end up being mono-U Fae; this was meant to be an experiment to see if we can get it to work.

meow
08-07-2013, 02:48 AM
Have you considered http://deckbox.org/system/images/mtg/cards/275720.jpg ? I don't know how you feel after testing the deck but my experience in Ld decks leads me to think that they don't really work becauseyou can't bounce their lands on turn 1, this means that when you are not starting the game for the first turns they will be having basicly 1-2 lands to cast a spell each turns which can be enough for some decks, Tide could help you to wipe the board and let them with nothing left :).

Canarias4life
08-07-2013, 07:18 AM
You would play this cards:
- remand
- boomerang
- eye of nowhere
- repeal
- exhaustion
- gigadrowse
- ebony owl netsuke or another red finisher as Sudden impact
- evacuation

Snapcaster mage could be useful to delay our opponents

evanmartyr
08-09-2013, 10:05 AM
Have you considered http://deckbox.org/system/images/mtg/cards/275720.jpg ? I don't know how you feel after testing the deck but my experience in Ld decks leads me to think that they don't really work becauseyou can't bounce their lands on turn 1, this means that when you are not starting the game for the first turns they will be having basicly 1-2 lands to cast a spell each turns which can be enough for some decks, Tide could help you to wipe the board and let them with nothing left :).

Against a good number of decks you're not hitting lands, really, you're just returning their better threats to their hand again and again and again, so they're pretty stuck with their early clocks, and generally mid game those get traded for Snapcasters or Riftwings or whatever. Devestation Tide or Cyclonic Rift I've been thinking about as a way to combat aggro, but I think there may be some more effective tactics rather than relying on bounce. Even something as simple as siding in Damnation or Infest might be better.

YamiJoey
08-09-2013, 10:18 AM
Honestly I'd be looking into Talrand and Young Pryromancer to make this deck. You have to actually get somewhere with all of the things you're intending to do. You also need to have something like Shatterstorm in the sideboard, because Affinity will just wreck you. You cannot afford to be wasting time bouncing a single card when they drop 3 a turn. Your finishers seem way off, and way too ambitious. Tamiyo would be sketchy at best. I'd play Jace in that spot and just use his +1 to consistently buy you time over and over again, or go into White for Gideon if you wanted Planeswalkers. I like Tamiyo a lot once you're on lock, but if you're behind she will eat you alive. Jace can protect you and dig for key spells like Cryptic Command. It's also a crime that you're not playing Snapcaster Mage.

Bed Decks Palyer
08-09-2013, 04:16 PM
Reality Strobe
Is it useful? I remeber been totally embarrassed with the card.

mojoiskewl
08-16-2013, 09:51 AM
needs more Cephalid Constable